the day after tomorrow

the day after tomorrow
the day after tomorrow
images of our earth in crisis
by J Henry Fair
with essays by
James Hansen
Allen Hershkowitz
Jack Hitt
Roger D. Hodge
Frances Mayes
John Rockwell
Tensie Whelan
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Images of Our Earth In Crisis
By J Henry Fair
with essays by James Hansen, Allen Herskowitz, Jack Hitt, Roger D. Hodge,
Frances Mayes, John Rockwell, and Tensie Whelan
Published by
This PDF of The Day After Tomorrow is only a preview of
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contact Joel Caceres, Publicity Associate, at
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the day after tomorrow
images of our earth in crisis
by J Henry Fair
with essays by
James Hansen
Allen Hershkowitz
Jack Hitt
Roger D. Hodge
Frances Mayes
John Rockwell
Tensie Whelan
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Aerators violently agitate the waste
a pulp mill, turning the liquid to a
which makes patterns on the surface.
plant manufactures popular brands of
towels and printer paper.
4
from
foam,
This
paper
INTRODUCTION
This is a book of photographs of environmental disasters occurring at different points
in the consumer/industrial cycle, which illustrate the negative impact our contemporary
consumer society has on the planetary systems that sustain our existence. Because
of the subject the pictures are inherently political, but my first goal was to create
compelling images.
Essays written by some of the top writers, scientists, and environmentalists of our day
punctuate the images. They were asked to write personal memoirs with an environmental
focus, and the results range from hilarious to heart-wrenching. At the end is an appendix
with more information about each image and a graphic representation of the environmental
impact seen therein.
The objective of these pictures is not to vilify any given company or industry —
there are good and bad actors everywhere. My intent is to engage the viewer, stimulate
curiosity, and encourage dialog. Our society’s structure has evolved to the point
where government responds not to the citizenry, but to the corporations that finance
it. These days the vote that matters the most is the purchase decision. Though our
government does not defend or respond to us, the manufacturers do. If we all demanded
toilet paper made from old newspapers instead of blithely purchasing brands made from
old-growth forests, those forests would be saved as would all of the animals who live
there, (not to mention the carbon that would remain sequestered). So the goal of these
pictures is to promote an activist consumerism. This is a strategy that works; as
testament, look at the Toyota Prius and Whole Foods. There is even an organic food
section in Walmart.
Tremendous research has gone into understanding what is seen in these images. Informa
Information was gathered from numerous sources: newspapers, websites, the EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency), EIA (Energy Information Agency), environmental groups, satellite
images, and sources within and just outside of the government. However, even these
attempts at exposing the problem at hand can sometimes fall short. Due to exemptions
granted to powerful industries, some of the most egregious industrial scars are “off the
record.” The notorious Bevill Amendment to the RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act) is particularly damaging. For instance, the uranium content, and thus radioactivity,
of phosphate fertilizer waste is well known, but due to RCRA exemptions, appears nowhere
“on the record,” and thus the industry escapes the expense of proper handling. Also, one
can only photograph what can be seen; often the most dangerous pollutants are invisible.
I write this after a month of repeated trips over the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and it cannot help but have an emotional effect. Now,
if I have to drive somewhere, I feel guilty. I can’t bear to drink from a plastic water
bottle knowing that oil equaling roughly 1/3 of the volume of that water bottle was used
to get it into my hands. One of my responses to the Gulf gusher is to hitchhike. Why burn
7
gas to get from train station to home (a prosperous suburban area outside NYC)? Usually
I have no problem, but last night at 10 p.m., my good neighbors paraded by in their SUVs,
shaking their heads at this impetuous ruffian who would dare to degrade their property
values by exhibiting this bohemian behavior. Coughing in their exhaust plumes, I wondered
how they could not see their complicity in the Gulf.
I’m constantly amazed by the willingness of people to ignore the consequences of their
actions, and the real risks to their health and well-being. Most of us live in a world
of indulgences, all of which have an environmental cost that will be passed on to our
children. “The environment” is the system that supports life, our life. But those who
are concerned about it, who speak up about it, are relegated to the status of zealots
and simpletons. “Things are too complicated,” we are told. “We can’t change our economy,
business will suffer, jobs will be lost.” Meanwhile, the system that provides us the
air and water we need to live is going into cardiac arrest. I believe that we could
very easily change the direction of our society and economy toward sustainability with
nothing but benefits for our children, ourselves, and our economy. The only losers would
be those currently making fortunes from destruction and exploitation. We have the power.
Spend your dollars with your children in mind.
J Henry Fair
New York, 2010
Gulf Of Mexico.
Nighttime view of operations at the
BP Deepwater Horizon spill site showing various vessels. The two flares
are burning off the small percentage
of volatile gases captured from the
erupting well below. The foreground
rig, Development Driller 3, is drilling one of the relief wells that is
hoped to plug the eruption.
9
CRISIS IN THE GULF
Deepwater is a crisis of first order, and a crisis, as they say, is an opportunity not
to be wasted. But missing the point seems to be the order of the day as we fret about
blame and oily pelicans. There is no doubt that our regulation and permitting processes
must be revised, and negligent parties held responsible. But the fact is that those oily
birds and dolphins are doomed, and as long as it is allowed, oil will be extracted from
the farthest reaches of the globe at the least cost possible. The real discussion about
how to keep this from happening again must be centered on our energy future. Every government in recent times has parroted the truisms that we must wean ourselves from oil
and graduate to sustainable energy sources — and then proceeded with business as usual.
Our representatives are “elected” with the help of vast contributions from the oil companies that have a vested interest in the status quo (the biggest beneficiary of BP’s
largesse between 2004 and 2009 was President Obama, to the tune of $77,000). To expect
that politicians will orchestrate a change in the current system is unrealistic.
If we want change, we must force it. I herewith reject any protestation
What can you do? Ride a bicycle, buy a wood stove, insulate your house,
your boiler (only turn it on to take showers). The solutions are there;
apathy and complacency and demand them. You can do something about this
want to.)
10
of impotence.
and turn off
we must discard
(if you really
11
Barataria Bay, Louisiana.
Shoreline concaves on this barrier island
rookery collect oil of different weights
drifting from the BP Deepwater spill.
12
Gulf of Mexico.
Many many different compounds are
emerging from the subaqueous Macondo
well, including different types of
oil. Here, two are interacting.
14
RESOLUTION
What are we thinking?
Where’s the war against terrorizing the oceans?
I’m flying across the Atlantic Ocean, routed north because of Iceland’s spewing volcano.
From 39,000 feet aloft the ocean changes from soft green to graphite to black, then soon
to silver as the plane crosses time zones into early dawn. Strapped into my 36A slot,
I feel a surge of exhilaration. The mighty Atlantic and the volcano blowing its top —
how powerful the Earth!
We’re hurtling through air we couldn’t survive in for three minutes, heading for one
of the most timeless cities on Earth: Roma. Soon the plane pushes through the clouds;
suddenly the fabled coastline angles across the small window and then immortal, redroofed farmhouses and green fields appear. We’re landing. As I exit from the nether
regions of the plane, I notice how many empty plastic bottles are stuffed in seat
pockets, strewn on the floor. Business class, with downy quilts flung hither and yon,
looks like a scene of debauchery, only it was plain old water they were drinking, not
some mead of the gods. I remember I have a plastic water bottle in my bag. The wine
I drank aboard was in a plastic cup. The “silverware” was plastic, as were the containers of “food,” and the tray they were served on. The old movie The Graduate was
prophetic; plastic was the future then — and now we’re in that future.
As I write this two days later, black oil is roiling into the heaven-given aquamarine
clarity of the Gulf of Mexico. There’s a scheme to put a box over the leak. My eightyear-old grandson said, “If it even works, what’s that going to do to the ocean floor?”
What, indeed, mouth of babe? The greed to drill outpaced technology to contain in case
something went wrong, terribly and tragically wrong.
With 3,500 rigs in that sacred water, stuff like this is going to happen, not just this
once. And then there’s the Pacific trash vortex, a miasma of 3.5 million TONS of mostly
plastic. It’s twice the size of Texas and bobs in the waves between Hawaii and California. The same plastic water bottles on the floor of the 777. They’re everywhere — from
endless landfills to the canals of Venice, a place of sublime beauty.
These two cataclysmic outrages, I realize, are only two of many. We’ve botched it big
time. Where’s the outcry, the demand to curb our spendthrift ways? My rage shoots forth
like that gush of oil. Foolish rage, impotent rage? Am I like Sister Orsola Benincasa?
Her heated body used to hiss like a red-hot iron and steam issued from her mouth.
16
On nights of insomnia, I visualize a sloop skimming over tropical waters, the clear view
to the rippled bottom, the clean salt sting as a wave smacks the bow.
Our waters! How we flock to them for renewal all summer; how we have from childhood;
Masefield’s strong urge to “go down to the seas again.” Now we all must know, as poet
William Stafford put it, “the terror of having such a great friend, undeserved.” Isn’t
the percentage of salt in my body the same as in the waters of the oceans?
This morning at the tiny grocery store in my adopted Tuscan town I saw a truckload of
bottled water. Surely the mania for water in a bottle is a holdover from when wells
were shallow and people searched for springs where they filled their glass demijohns
with pure acqua. Until recently here, bottled water came only in glass. Now it’s mostly
plastic and it surprises me that Italians, who are such natural gourmets, will drink
water that slightly reeks. Plastic is a terrible medium for storage, imparting as it
does quickly, that dead taste. Not so long ago we all got by without carrying around
a plastic bottle as though we are top athletes who must constantly hydrate from our
exertions. (And people look plug-ugly drinking out of bottles, especially those with
the weird tops you suck.)
I drive a hybrid. I take my own bags to the store. I don’t use chemicals in my garden.
Yes, recycle, vote for candidates who give a damn about the Earth, search for green
products. Henry Fair even has me giving up paper towels. Whoop-de-do — this, I know,
doesn’t reduce the Sargasso Sea of garbage in the Pacific or stop a drop of oil from
surging into the Gulf.
But anyway, now, today, this minute — a vow. Just for myself. Not for water, certainly,
but not for soda, laundry soap, bleach, mustard, peanut oil, or juice. Niente. No more
plastic bottles.
Frances Mayes
Cortona, Italy, 2010
17
Gulf of Mexico.
A small portion of the volatile gases
emanating from the Macondo well a mile
below is captured and piped up to the
Discoverer Enterprise drill ship which
flares it for disposal. The heat is so
intense that water must constantly be
sprayed on the nozzle arm to protect it.
18
Gulf of Mexico.
< Ships skimming oil from the BP spill.
On the right is a large mat of oil and
on the left clear water with strands of
thick oil. Skimming often catches sea
animals such as turtles, who perish when
the collected oil is burned.
> Oil floating on the surface of the
water is extremely reactive to disturbance, whether by wind, current or
vessel, and often forms interesting
shapes.
21
FROM THE BEGINNING
One could argue that our definition of beauty has evolved with the industrialization of
our society. Whereas once, only pastoral, organic settings and images were considered
beautiful, suddenly images of smokestacks and train tracks became anointed as works of
art. Conversely, there seems to be a concurrence between the industrial revolution and
an increase in the popularity of landscape painting, as if in an attempt to capture a
“paradise lost.” Photographers have long glorified the beauty of the machine, ever since
the invention of the camera itself. Perhaps it is no coincidence, considering photography
is the quintessential art form of the industrial revolution, but more likely the allure
of machinery was born of the fact that machines represent the pinnacle of functional
beauty. A parallel theme in photography is the alienation of man in the face of industry.
These images comment on those photographic schools, and lead toward the later abstracts.
22
Near Dakar, Senegal.
enegal.
Factory, farmers, and dust.
Southern Senegal.
Old machine parts arbitrarily strewn around a field.
24
< Awendaw, South Carolina.
Decrepit gas pump.
> New Rochelle, New York.
Clock face on control panel at garbage
incinerator.
26
Belle Chasse, Louisiana.
ouisiana.
This refinery on the Mississippi Delta
processes raw crude into gasoline,
diesel, and jet fuel. About 40 percent
of our refining capacity is on the
hurricane-prone Gulf Coast. After
Hurricane Katrina, this refinery was
closed for 235 days.
Middle USA.
The smokestacks indicate that this
is probably a coal-fired power plant.
According to Harper’s Magazine: “The
estimated portion of all freshwater
drawn from U.S. sources each year that
is used to cool power plants: 1/2.”
30
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
The Mississippi runs through the middle of our culture as it does our nation, dividing
East from West, frontier from settlement, and new from old. This waterway, seemingly
immutable, a microcosm of our nation’s ecological history, has slipped from mighty to
ravaged in less than a century. In 1866, Mark Twain, a man responsible more than any
other for inserting the dream of the Mississippi into the imaginations of all Americans,
remarked, “The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can
persuade it to do otherwise.” Sadly, this statement no longer applies, as the mighty
river has been channeled, chopped, and choked by the increasing industrialization of
the past century and a half.
The road from New Orleans down the Mississippi Delta seems endless; a monotony broken
only by the occasional refinery, oil rig, or cow field. Venice is a small town at the
end existing only to serve the needs of the oil company operations in the Gulf. After
making the pilgrimage to Venice numerous times, passing towns like Port Sulphur and
Buras, sneaking into refineries and coal loading facilities, running from the guards with
my heart pounding, I suddenly had the inspiration to hire a plane and see it from the
air, choosing as the first site the corridor of the Mississippi known as “Cancer Alley,”
between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
I had been trying for years to make photographs that effectively communicated the
ramifications of our pell-mell race to dysfunction. Pictures of deforested hillsides
and refinery pipes don’t move people, because we have seen it all before and are a bit
jaded, but also because they don’t stimulate an aesthetic response. Aerial photography
was a revelation. It offered both access to otherwise off-limits sites of pollution, as
well as an amazingly appealing visual perspective from which to view and photograph these
hidden disasters.
32
Zachary, Louisiana.
ouisiana.
Waste from a paper mill is agitated by
aerators, producing steam and foam,
which are pushed by the wind.
Geismar, Louisiana.
ouisiana.
Waste from the manufacturing process is
pumped up to the impoundment, the walls
of which are created by an excavator
that scoops the solids from the liquid
and applies them to the embankment. This
image was from my first flight over this
site, and several years were to pass
before the process was identified.
35
Gramercy, Louisiana.
Bauxite waste. Aluminum production has
a tremendous climate change impact with
both the gases released and the tremendous amount of electricity needed for
the process.
36
New Roads, Louisiana.
This power plant, fired by coal, supplies
power to Baton Rouge and the industries
along the Mississippi River. It is one
of the 50 largest emitters of mercury in
the USA, and releases 14,300,000 tons of
carbon dioxide per year.
38
A NEW AMERICAN DREAM
hard, succeeded against difficult odds, demonstrated vision and leadership, grabbed
strategic opportunities, made money, and made history.
The country is in the throes of an argument about who it is. It has not really admitted
this — instead the media talks about red state vs. blue state, Tea Party vs. Grand Old
Party, but really we are in the midst of an identity crisis.
I am proud of Americans in general, who (surveys say), work harder than any other people
in the world, who are continually inventive and forward-thinking, who are generous with
worthy causes, and who are not afraid to lead, to take risks, to think big.
It is a crisis of beliefs and values and ways of doing business that have been embedded
in the American Dream since the Mayflower. I have been part of that dream. My ancestors
came over on the Mayflower — one was a manservant named Howland who fell overboard and,
rather improbably, was rescued. He and the rest of the “first comers” believed that
hard work would set you free. And indeed they prospered — through subjugating nature,
Indians, and people who did not agree with their Puritan interpretation of Christianity.
And yet look what this has led to: Native Americans murdered and marginalized; natural
resources squandered and destroyed; an elite 5 percent controlling most of the business
and most of the money in the country; people working longer work weeks than peasants
did in medieval times and getting stressed and sick; Americans buying clothes, cars,
houses, and electronics to make them happy, but ranking themselves at #114 in the
global happiness index.
On my mother’s side of the family, I descend from a Spanish/Mexican mixed blood named
Ortega who went conquering up the California coast with Gaspar de Portolà and was put
in charge of the Royal Presidio of Santa Barbara, where he went merrily about chaining
nature, Indians, and people who did not agree with Catholicism.
We need a new American Dream. It’s not the values that are wrong, it’s the objectives that
are wrong. Lots of money. Lots of stuff. The right to buy whatever we want even if it is
poisoning people and the land.
More, more, more.
And then we have the Moore brother ancestors who during the 19th-century gold rush in
California drove cattle over the mountains to sell to the starving miners, taking most
of their gold in exchange.
Or the Irish immigrant ancestor who went from poverty to being a multi-millionaire by
coming up with the idea of the corner tobacco store, which led to United Cigar Brands,
which led to Phillip Morris buying him out, which led to lots of money until the stock
market crash of 1929. Oh, and it led to cancer too, though not for him.
I say — enough.
Let’s unleash our ingenuity, our energy, our passion, and create an American Dream that
helps us to be more rather than to have more. An American Dream that satisfies and sustains
us like a delicious home-cooked meal and not a bar of candy that gives us a nice quick
high and a nasty hangover.
We need a new American Dream.
We have many stories like this that are a part of our family lexicon.
The American Dream beats so strong in my breast that I am proud of this motley crew, who
made their way exploiting others and the environment. Proud of them because they worked
40
Tensie Whelan
Danby, V
VT, 2010
41
New Roads, Louisiana.
Bulldozer tracks and yellow liquid in ash
waste from a coal-fired power plant. This
facility produces 860,640 tons of coal
combustion waste (CCW) annually, making
it one of the dirtiest in the USA.
42
Zachary, Louisiana.
This mill on the Mississippi River
makes paper towels and printer paper.
According to the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development,
the paper industry is the largest single
industrial user of water, and the third
largest producer of greenhouse gases.
44
Zachary, Louisiana.
Trees to supply pulp for this mill are
cut from forests along the Mississippi
and trucked to this facility. Here the
loader feeds them into a hopper that
will take them for pulping.
46
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
ouisiana.
The ruins of this aluminum refinery are
the visible remains of this vanished
industrial giant. The hidden remnants
include mercury and groundwater
contamination.
47
CAN ART CHANGE SOCIETY?
Bad, or at least deeply flawed, artists can make great art. Art doesn’t necessarily make
you wise or socially or morally correct, however much we’d like to think so. Art itself
doesn’t improve society or mankind. Pictures of horrible or scary things might use
art, use beauty, to lure a viewer into a contemplation of non-artistic issues. But art
shouldn’t itself be reduced to a teaser for something supposedly higher or better.
The closest parallel in human experience to art is probably religion. Those who love
art, who are thrilled by it or caught up in it to the point of rapture, experience something similar to what a believer experiences from an encounter with the Divine. Art
becomes a revelation not of something higher than itself, but rather of itself.
That is why moralists and rationalists have long been suspicious of art, starting at
least as far back as Plato. Art is something so powerful that they can’t control it, can’t
channel it to purposes they consider more proper. Art can’t make one more environmentally
conscious. Conceivably, one could look at photographs of environmental ruination or hubris
and find them so beautiful that one would be inspired to charge out into nature and despoil
it some more, if only to create still more beauty that could then be photographed.
Which is hardly to say that beautiful pictures of horrible things should be suppressed.
Our very awareness of art’s twisted relation to evil makes its contemplation more
compelling. I have a lifelong fascination with German culture in general and Richard
Wagner in particular. Up until 1933 Germany boasted the most sophisticated, complexly
48
rich culture in Western civilization. Yet it produced Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust,
a horror in some debatable sense foreshadowed by Wagner’s anti-Semitism and the grandeur
of his music dramas.
When I sit for long hours at Bayreuth, am I morally compelled to think of Auschwitz?
If I enjoy a rap song, must I brood upon homophobic gangsta thugs calling women bitches
and hoes? Some people angrily think that I should, in both cases. I do not. For me, the
artistic experience can speak for itself. Afterwards, any of us is encouraged to think
back upon the experience, to knit art back into our social and moral, and political ethos.
An opera or a photograph can be both artistic and overtly political. But unless the
artist explicitly deems the art to be secondary (as Brecht came very close to doing),
it is wrong to assume that it is secondary, that the “real” world automatically trumps
the aesthetic.
Retroactive reflection on the role of art in society only enriches the overall artistic
experience. It enriches life itself, of which art may be only a part, but for some of
us a part that need take a deferential position to no other. The deeper the connections
between art and life, those perceived in the contemplative postlude to the artistic
experience — even if those connections seem initially contradictory, as in a beautiful
rendering of something ethically and politically abhorrent — the deeper the art.
John Rockwell
New York City, 2010
49
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
< Rainwater collects in this waste
area from the abandoned aluminum plant
pictured on page 49. Long after the
industry is gone, with its jobs and economic support, the environmental legacy
will be funded by the taxpayers.
> Same site, four years earlier.
Tonawanda, New York.
ork.
Both the combustion ash and the smokestack residue from coal-burning power
plants are extremely toxic. Coal plants
are the largest source of radiation
released into the environment, and
frequently contaminate groundwater
with arsenic leeched from ash waste.
52
Zug Island, Michigan.
Waste pit near Detroit auto factories.
54
JUST A FACIAL TISSUE
What could be more innocuous than a facial tissue? Who thinks twice about pulling it out
of the box to wipe a bit of leakage from the nose or mouth? In actual fact, innocuous
should be the last adjective applied to this most modern of conveniences. Depending
on which brand the consumer buys, that unconsidered swipe could be the cause of global
warming, water pollution, air pollution, deforestation, and habitat loss. Large swaths
of The Kenogami Forest in northern Ontario are being clear-cut for pulp to make toilet
paper and facial tissue.
Boreal forests, also know as the taiga, form a ring around the top of the planet combining to form the Earth’s largest terrestrial ecosystem. Comprised mostly of pine,
spruce, balsam fir, cedar, larch, and poplar, the forests provide a habitat for wildlife,
generate oxygen, purify water, and sequester carbon. The Canadian boreal is a uniquely
beautiful ecosystem, and a joy to see from above.
It seems a horrible joke that we are cutting down an old growth forest to blow our noses.
Carry a handkerchief.
57
Kenogami Forest, Ontario, Canada.
Machine cuts logs to length after clearcutting. Logging is subsidized by the
Canadian government for “job creation,”
though in fact the process is so machine
intensive that very few jobs are created.
59
Kenogami Forest, Ontario, Canada.
Trees stacked in preparation for pulping. According to Greenpeace: “Mature
boreal forest contains 80 tons of carbon
per hectare, and much more in the soil,
all of which is released when the trees
are cut.”
60
Kenogami Forest, Ontario, Canada.
< Environmentally sensitive riparian
areas, permanent homes for moose,
waterfowl, and other wildlife, are
common features in the boreal landscape.
More than 45 percent, or 154 million
hectares (382 million acres), of the
treed area of the boreal is under
license to logging companies.
> A logging road, fringed with harvested
trees (conifers and aspen), ready for
processing.
62
63
LIFE IS GOD’S MASTERPIECE
Nature is God’s masterpiece. We have an ethical obligation to protect it and self-interest in doing so. Shouldn’t we do all we can to protect the organism that gives us air to
breathe and water to drink?
Since my early childhood the fragility and sanctity of life, its uniqueness, has been
particularly notable to me. Indeed, life is among the most rare phenomena in the universe. Humanity has not found life anywhere other than here on Earth, in the biosphere
surrounding our planet. The biosphere stretches from the top of the atmosphere, about
three miles up, to the depths of the oceans, about two miles down. The totality of life
that we have been able to find in the known universe exists within this tiny, five-mile
band. Our daunting task in the 21st century is nothing less than the preservation of the
functional integrity of this biosphere, on which all life depends.
Long before I evolved into my profession, as a child and during my early adulthood I
became intimately aware of the suffering and destruction that misguided human behavior
can cause. I learned early how disrespectful of life humans can be. My father spent
the years 1939–1944 in Auschwitz. His first wife, his two children, both his parents,
and six brothers and sisters were murdered by Nazis. My mother spent the years 1941–
1944 in the Dachau concentration camp. Her first child (a daughter), her first husband,
both her parents, and four brothers and sisters were also murdered by Nazis. They
met and fell in love after the war as refugees at the Feldafing displaced persons
camp. From my parents I learned the Talmudic lesson that life is God’s masterpiece.
Protecting life, especially its most vulnerable and rare expressions, is a motivation
indelibly imprinted into my soul.
I am never emotionally far away from my parents’ story, and today I join with others
who are focused on preventing a different, newer form of refugee from emerging:
environmental refugees. The U.N. estimates that during the next 40 years one billion
new environmental refugees will emerge, growing from 155 million environmental refugees
worldwide today. People will lose their homes to drought, flooding, coastal erosion,
famine. As a result of anticipated effects of global warming, people in regions
throughout the world are developing evacuation routes from places they have long
64
called their home. As Al Gore pointed out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, forced
migrations of people with different religions and cultures and traditions, imposed
largely by the effects of climate change in the form of floods, water scarcity, droughts,
coastal erosion, famine, and damage to infrastructure from monster storms such as
Hurricane Katrina, hold the potential to dwarf the forced human migrations caused by
wars, and are now some of the most urgent threats facing poor people in the developing
world. Movements of refugees at that scale are unprecedented and hold the potential to
destabilize entire regions. The Pentagon has already been developing plans to address
climate induced wars, anticipating frightening scenarios of migration, such as millions
of Chinese fleeing a drought, trying to flood into Russia across the longest and most
militarized border on the planet.
Every day more than 200,000 new people are born. Every six weeks, another New York
City’s worth of population is added to the planet. And people are consuming more, not
less. Per-capita personal consumption and government consumption are both growing
rapidly. The use of fossil fuels continues to rise, and people throughout the world
are eating more meat, the production of which is certainly among the most ecologically
destructive activities on Earth.
How can we make the shift to a saner form of living on Earth? Can we do so at all? Will
more and more of the planet be converted into one of Henry Fair’s “Industrial Scars”?
The ecological crises we face are not the result of one single bad actor. The 90 million
tons of global warming pollution emitted each and every day result from millions of
purchasing and personal decisions made each day by literally billions of people and
millions of companies. There is no single remedy for global warming, nor is there one
remedy to address water scarcity or biodiversity loss. All actors in our society must
do...something.
Perhaps many of these problems are not solvable. Perhaps. But when I move on and appear
before my maker I don’t expect Her to ask me, “Did you stop global warming?” or, “Did
you prevent another Holocaust?” I expect Her to ask, “What did you try to do?”
Allen Hershkowitz
New York City, 2010
65
Terrace Bay, Ontario,
ntario, Canada.
A red fox stands on the road to a pulp
mill. Smaller predators are often more
able to adapt to the disruptions caused
by human industrial processes.
67
Terrace Bay, Ontario, Canada.
This aeration pond is part of the
effluent treatment system. The primary
task of the treatment is to remove
organics (wood fiber), from the water
before it is returned to its source
(typically a river.)
The average pulp mill requires more than
16 million gallons of fresh water daily.
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Terrace Bay, Ontario, Canada.
At this factory, the pulp for the
world’s most popular facial tissue is
produced. If every household in the
United States replaced just one roll of
virgin-fiber toilet paper with a roll of
100 percent recycled paper, we could
save 423,900 trees.
TURN OFF THE LIGHTS
The USA gets about 50 percent of its electricity by burning coal, a power source
billed as “cheap energy.” Ironically, the label only applies if one does not include
the subsidies given to coal producers and the power utilities that supply and use this
dirtiest of fuels. It is “cheap” on our electricity bills only because we paid for it in
advance with our tax dollars.
Coal combustion is the largest single source of climate-changing gases being released
into the environment, as well as the largest source of mercury, arsenic, and uranium.
But the environmental problems begin as soon as coal is exposed. In the mountainous
Appalachian Region, the traditional (quite dangerous) deep-mining methods have been
replace by a uniquely American approach called mountaintop removal mining (MTR), in
which the mountain is blasted away and the coal collected, leaving only a decimated
ecosystem that will never recover.
MTR is a perfect example of the false claim that environmental devastation is necessary
for job creation. According to one estimate, West Virginia had 120,000 coal-mining
jobs in 1960 (before the adoption of MTR), and 15,000 in 2002. The story of Coal River
Mountain is particularly illustrative: though permits have been issued to destroy the
mountain for coal, which would provide a few jobs and enough coal for a short time,
studies have shown that windmills in the same area could effectively provide electricity
forever. Regulators went ahead and issued the permits for blasting to begin in spite of
overwhelming local support for the wind farm option.
The people living in the areas of these various resource extractions are the first to
be impacted by these processes, and some become activists in self-defense. One such
hero is a man named Larry Gibson, and I was lucky enough to have him as a guide. Larry
lives on Kayford Mountain (or what’s left of it), and is a modern-day David standing up
to the Goliath of “King Coal,” vowing to protect his ancestral land from destruction.
It’s an ironic comment on human nature that, though the number of coal mining jobs
has plummeted, people in the area still fiercely advocate for the industry in spite of
the fact that the natural systems that support life in the region are being destroyed.
As you might guess, Larry is not the most popular kid on the block, having suffered
threats, violence, and the killing of a dog. But he is a man of mettle, and a source
of inspiration.
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Formerly Kayford Mountain, West Virginia.
The location of a coal seam is determined by taking “core samples.” In the
mountaintop removal (MTR) mining process, the earth is then blasted away
to reach the coal seam, a process that
wastes 94 percent of the coal.
Near Kayford Mountain, West Virginia.
The bowl shape of this excavation suggests that it might be used to contain
coal slurry, the mixture of water and
chemicals used to wash coal.
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THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Images of Our Earth In Crisis
By J Henry Fair
with essays by James Hansen, Allen Herskowitz, Jack Hitt, Roger D. Hodge,
Frances Mayes, John Rockwell, and Tensie Whelan
Published by
This PDF of The Day After Tomorrow is only a preview of
the entire book. To see the complete version, please
contact Joel Caceres, Publicity Associate, at
[email protected]